Mansfield Park
Bertram too. We shall be quite a small party at home. I hope my uncle
may continue to like Mr. Rushworth.”
“That is impossible, Fanny. He must like him less after to-morrow’s
visit, for we shall be five hours in his company. I should dread the
stupidity of the day, if there were not a much greater evil to
follow—the impression it must leave on Sir Thomas. He cannot much
longer deceive himself. I am sorry for them all, and would give
something that Rushworth and Maria had never met.”
In this quarter, indeed, disappointment was impending over Sir Thomas.
Not all his good-will for Mr. Rushworth, not all Mr. Rushworth’s
deference for him, could prevent him from soon discerning some part of
the truth—that Mr. Rushworth was an inferior young man, as ignorant in
business as in books, with opinions in general unfixed, and without
seeming much aware of it himself.
He had expected a very different son-in-law; and beginning to feel
grave on Maria’s account, tried to understand _her_ feelings. Little
observation there was necessary to tell him that indifference was the
most favourable state they could be in. Her behaviour to Mr. Rushworth
was careless and cold. She could not, did not like him. Sir Thomas
resolved to speak seriously to her. Advantageous as would be the
alliance, and long standing and public as was the engagement, her
happiness must not be sacrificed to it. Mr. Rushworth had, perhaps,
been accepted on too short an acquaintance, and, on knowing him better,
she was repenting.
With solemn kindness Sir Thomas addressed her: told her his fears,
inquired into her wishes, entreated her to be open and sincere, and
assured her that every inconvenience should be braved, and the
connexion entirely given up, if she felt herself unhappy in the
prospect of it. He would act for her and release her. Maria had a
moment’s struggle as she listened, and only a moment’s: when her father
ceased, she was able to give her answer immediately, decidedly, and
with no apparent agitation. She thanked him for his great attention,
his paternal kindness, but he was quite mistaken in supposing she had
the smallest desire of breaking through her engagement, or was sensible
of any change of opinion or inclination since her forming it. She had
the highest esteem for Mr. Rushworth’s character and disposition, and
could not have a doubt of her happiness with him.
Sir Thomas was satisfied; too glad to be satisfied, perhaps, to urge
the matter quite so far as his judgment might have dictated to others.
It was an alliance which he could not have relinquished without pain;
and thus he reasoned. Mr. Rushworth was young enough to improve. Mr.
Rushworth must and would improve in good society; and if Maria could
now speak so securely of her happiness with him, speaking certainly
without the prejudice, the blindness of love, she ought to be believed.
Her feelings, probably, were not acute; he had never supposed them to
be so; but her comforts might not be less on that account; and if she
could dispense with seeing her husband a leading, shining character,
there would certainly be everything else in her favour. A well-disposed
young woman, who did not marry for love, was in general but the more
attached to her own family; and the nearness of Sotherton to Mansfield
must naturally hold out the greatest temptation, and would, in all
probability, be a continual supply of the most amiable and innocent
enjoyments. Such and such-like were the reasonings of Sir Thomas, happy
to escape the embarrassing evils of a rupture, the wonder, the
reflections, the reproach that must attend it; happy to secure a
marriage which would bring him such an addition of respectability and
influence, and very happy to think anything of his daughter’s
disposition that was most favourable for the purpose.
To her the conference closed as satisfactorily as to him. She was in a
state of mind to be glad that she had secured her fate beyond recall:
that she had pledged herself anew to Sotherton; that she was safe from
the possibility of giving Crawford the triumph of governing her
actions, and destroying her prospects; and retired in proud resolve,
determined only to behave more cautiously to Mr. Rushworth in future,
that her father might not be again suspecting her.
Had Sir Thomas applied to his daughter within the first three or four
days after Henry Crawford’s leaving Mansfield, before her feelings were
at all tranquillised, before she had given up every hope of him, or
absolutely resolved on enduring his rival, her answer might have been
different; but after another three or four days, when there was no
return, no letter, no message, no symptom of a softened heart, no hope
of advantage from separation, her mind became cool enough to seek all
the comfort that pride and self revenge could give.
Henry Crawford had destroyed her happiness, but he should not know that
he had done it; he should not destroy her credit, her appearance, her
prosperity, too. He should not have to think of her as pining in the
retirement of Mansfield for _him_, rejecting Sotherton and London,
independence and splendour, for _his_ sake. Independence was more
needful than ever; the want of it at Mansfield more sensibly felt. She
was less and less able to endure the restraint which her father
imposed. The liberty which his absence had given was now become
absolutely necessary. She must escape from him and Mansfield as soon as
possible, and find consolation in fortune and consequence, bustle and
the world, for a wounded spirit. Her mind was quite determined, and
varied not.
To such feelings delay, even the delay of much preparation, would have
been an evil, and Mr. Rushworth could hardly be more impatient for the
marriage than herself. In all the important preparations of the mind
she was complete: being prepared for matrimony by an hatred of home,
restraint, and tranquillity; by the misery of disappointed affection,
and contempt of the man she was to marry. The rest might wait. The
preparations of new carriages and furniture might wait for London and
spring, when her own taste could have fairer play.
The principals being all agreed in this respect, it soon appeared that
a very few weeks would be sufficient for such arrangements as must
precede the wedding.
Mrs. Rushworth was quite ready to retire, and make way for the
fortunate young woman whom her dear son had selected; and very early in
November removed herself, her maid, her footman, and her chariot, with
true dowager propriety, to Bath, there to parade over the wonders of
Sotherton in her evening parties; enjoying them as thoroughly, perhaps,
in the animation of a card-table, as she had ever done on the spot; and
before the middle of the same month the ceremony had taken place which
gave Sotherton another mistress.
It was a very proper wedding. The bride was elegantly dressed; the two
bridesmaids were duly inferior; her father gave her away; her mother
stood with salts in her hand, expecting to be agitated; her aunt tried
to cry; and the service was impressively read by Dr. Grant. Nothing
could be objected to when it came under the discussion of the
neighbourhood, except that the carriage which conveyed the bride and
bridegroom and Julia from the church-door to Sotherton was the same
chaise which Mr. Rushworth had used for a twelvemonth before. In
everything else the etiquette of the day might stand the strictest
investigation.
It was done, and they were gone. Sir Thomas felt as an anxious father
must feel, and was indeed experiencing much of the agitation which his
wife had been apprehensive of for herself, but had fortunately escaped.
Mrs. Norris, most happy to assist in the duties of the day, by spending
it at the Park to support her sister’s spirits, and drinking the health
of Mr. and Mrs. Rushworth in a supernumerary glass or two, was all
joyous delight; for she had made the match; she had done everything;
and no one would have supposed, from her confident triumph, that she
had ever heard of conjugal infelicity in her life, or could have the
smallest insight into the disposition of the niece who had been brought
up under her eye.
The plan of the young couple was to proceed, after a few days, to
Brighton, and take a house there for some weeks. Every public place was
new to Maria, and Brighton is almost as gay in winter as in summer.
When the novelty of amusement there was over, it would be time for the
wider range of London.
Julia was to go with them to Brighton. Since rivalry between the
sisters had ceased, they had been gradually recovering much of their
former good understanding; and were at least sufficiently friends to
make each of them exceedingly glad to be with the other at such a time.
Some other companion than Mr. Rushworth was of the first consequence to
his lady; and Julia was quite as eager for novelty and pleasure as
Maria, though she might not have struggled through so much to obtain
them, and could better bear a subordinate situation.
Their departure made another material change at Mansfield, a chasm
which required some time to fill up. The family circle became greatly
contracted; and though the Miss Bertrams had latterly added little to
its gaiety, they could not but be missed. Even their mother missed
them; and how much more their tenderhearted cousin, who wandered about
the house, and thought of them, and felt for them, with a degree of
affectionate regret which they had never done much to deserve!
CHAPTER XXII
Fanny’s consequence increased on the departure of her cousins.
Becoming, as she then did, the only young woman in the drawing-room,
the only occupier of that interesting division of a family in which she
had hitherto held so humble a third, it was impossible for her not to
be more looked at, more thought of and attended to, than she had ever
been before; and “Where is Fanny?” became no uncommon question, even
without her being wanted for any one’s convenience.
Not only at home did her value increase, but at the Parsonage too. In
that house, which she had hardly entered twice a year since Mr.
Norris’s death, she became a welcome, an invited guest, and in the
gloom and dirt of a November day, most acceptable to Mary Crawford. Her
visits there, beginning by chance, were continued by solicitation. Mrs.
Grant, really eager to get any change for her sister, could, by the
easiest self-deceit, persuade herself that she was doing the kindest
thing by Fanny, and giving her the most important opportunities of
improvement in pressing her frequent calls.
Fanny, having been sent into the village on some errand by her aunt
Norris, was overtaken by a heavy shower close to the Parsonage; and
being descried from one of the windows endeavouring to find shelter
under the branches and lingering leaves of an oak just beyond their
premises, was forced, though not without some modest reluctance on her
part, to come in. A civil servant she had withstood; but when Dr. Grant
himself went out with an umbrella, there was nothing to be done but to
be very much ashamed, and to get into the house as fast as possible;
and to poor Miss Crawford, who had just been contemplating the dismal
rain in a very desponding state of mind, sighing over the ruin of all
her plan of exercise for that morning, and of every chance of seeing a
single creature beyond themselves for the next twenty-four hours, the
sound of a little bustle at the front door, and the sight of Miss Price
dripping with wet in the vestibule, was delightful. The value of an
event on a wet day in the country was most forcibly brought before her.
She was all alive again directly, and among the most active in being
useful to Fanny, in detecting her to be wetter than she would at first